I am but a humble traveler, blessed beyond what I could ever ask for.

All posts filed under: Sweet Tooth Chronicles

One of my favorite specialty shops in Manhattan is The Doughnut Plant, located in West 23rd Street. Here, you would find unique flavors such as mango, pistachio, tres leches and apricot, but make sure you get there early — they run out of these flavors, as these are made fresh and in limited batches in the morning. They also have cream filled ones, such as peanut butter and banana cream, creme brulee filled and coconut cream. When I went there, it was unfortunately late in the afternoon (I went after work) so they have already run out of all the flavors I wanted to try. I had the cream-cheese filled carrot cake donut, which was definitely a step up from the average donut shop. Since it was cake and not dough, the texture was different. The cream cheese was a nice touch and provided great contrast to the carrot cake. I would definitely love to go back in the morning and taste the other flavors, specially the tres leches and creme brulee filled. The Doughnut …

If you have a sweet tooth like I do, you have eaten as many crepes as I have. So when my boyfriend and I went on our Philly food tour last year and saw online that Alton Brown was on Best Thing I Ever Ate talking about Beau Monde‘s crepes, we had to add it on our list of places to visit. In the episode “Under Wraps,” Alton named two crepes, one savory, one sweet, as the best things he ever ate that are wrapped. If you like pears, you would like the dessert crepe, which is pear, chocolate and chestnut creme. The pear wasn’t overcooked, the chocolate and chestnut creme were a good combination and complimented the sourness/sweetness of the pear very well, but I did not like it because of the texture and grittiness of pears. This, however, is personal preference. The savory crepe, mushroom, swiss and almond, was perfectly cooked. They chose the right cheese for the crepe and the almond provided a crunch — it’s just the textural element that it …

I have written about the best ice cream I’ve had, so I thought this time I’d write about the best gelato. For this, we’d have to go to Croatia. I remember walking into the gates of Old Town in Dubrovnik and seeing everyone walking around holding ice cream cones. Being a marketer, I can attest that there isn’t any better advertisement one can ask for than that. That day, my boyfriend was not feeling too well and I told him, feeling envy towards the cone holders, that gelato will make everything feel better. Little did we know that we will be eating the best ones we’ve had. I approached the vendor with the flavors piled high displayed in the glass case and asked for the cones and bought chocolate for him, chocolate chip for me. We sat down by the fountain and started eating — I have said in my ice cream post that I microwave my ice cream when at home to get to my desired consistency, and this was just perfect, no microwave …

Last year my boyfriend and I went to Philadelphia to do a food tour. Before we went, we (mainly he) searched for videos of places that were featured on Food Network and Travel Channel shows such as Diners, Drive Ins and Dives and Best Thing I Ever Ate and mapped out where we wanted to go. One of the places on our list was this restaurant called Lolita, a recommendation from Food Network chef Robert Irvine on The Best Thing I Ever Ate’s “In A Bowl” episode. The dish: tiramisu. It is sweet, with a perfect amount of heat, which makes it a very balanced dessert. The texture and creaminess add to it as well. The verdict: it was the best tiramisu we’ve eaten. Lolita Tiramisu Dessert rating: 9.5 out of 10 (We didn’t eat anything else in this restaurant other than the Tiramisu, so a restaurant rating will not be fair)

I love getting my fortune cookie after a meal at a Chinese restaurant. The history of fortune cookies aside, it is a staple we have come to expect. At Tao in Manhattan, one of my favorite Asian fusion restaurants, the dessert menu includes a giant fortune cookie, which is filled with white and dark chocolate mousse. I had the chance to sample this interesting dessert when I went to the restaurant with my parents. It was served with assorted fruits on the side, and came with three giant fortunes. True to form, some of the fortunes made sense, some did not.It’s definitely a clever and creative dessert. The mousse had good consistency and had balance in sweetness between the white and the dark. I wished the cookie itself would have been crisper, but overall if you take a bite with the cookie as the textural element, the fruits giving the acidity and the mousse the sweetness, it will be a good bite. Tao Restaurant rating: 7.5 out of 10 Giant Fortune Cookie dessert rating: 7 out of 10 …

I have had a lot of good ice cream in my travels, and the best ones are the unexpected ones. Those that came from nowhere. You take a bite and you say, wait, this one’s for the books. Being a chocoholic, I do go for the usual chocolate or peanut butter flavors, and like my ice cream with texture. When at home, I like my ice cream not too frozen, pop it in the microwave for a little bit so it’s just the right consistency. So during a recent trip to Hyde Park, it was Bocuse’s table-side lavender ice cream that blew my boyfriend and I away: Lavender Ice Cream, Sablé, Wild Blueberry Sauce Yuzu-Lime Baba, Mascarpone Cheese and Mixed Berry “Mirror” Green Tea-Red Bean and Jasmine Rice Pudding Gâteaux Canelé de Bordeaux Warm Mixed Berry Pound Cake Lavender is not a flavor one would think for ice cream — and when we put it in our mouths, it was refreshing, and the contrast between the ice cream and the texture of the sable was perfect. …